The right's delusions of world-historical grandeur

By
Greg Sargent

Is the Tea Party movement comparable to the abolitionist, civil rights and women's suffrage movements?

As I've noted here before, it often seems like some on the right are suffering from what you might call a world-historical inferiority complex. They're so desperate to imagine themselves as actors in an ongoing drama that rivals the most momentous struggles in human history that they simply play-act the part, pumping up their own situation into something comically out of proportion with historical reality.

Here's another perfect example of this. "Tea Party Review," the first national magazine for Tea Partyers, is making its debut this week, and one of its founders explained the idea driving it by comparing the Tea Party to the most important movements in American history:

"People are weary of the distorted version of the Tea Party movement that we see in most of the media," said Katrina Pierson, a member of the Dallas Tea Party and the "national grassroots director" for the new magazine.

I think it's a bit too soon to say whether the Tea Party deserves a place alongside those movements. Abolitionism and the civil rights movement, taken together, spanned more than a century, beginning with the founding of abolitionist societies in the early 1800s and culminating in the 1960s with the passage of the Civil Rights and Voting Rights acts. The abolitionists helped liberate millions of people who had been held captive under a deeply entrenched economic system -- the Slave Power -- that could only be overturned by decades of committed political activism, superhuman perseverence, and untold amounts of bloodshed.

Publishers of abolitionist newspapers routinely had their printing presses broken up by angry white mobs, a fate that is unlikely to meet the publishers of the new Tea Party magazine. Yet despite the fact that the threat and reality of violence against them was ubiquitous, the abolitionists envisioned and helped put the nation on a path to the first interracial democracy in human history, and the civil rights movement took major steps to codify that vision into federal law, one of the greatest historical feats of all time.

By contrast, the Tea Party can't boast that level of accomplishment yet. Federal cash from the stimulus, which originally sparked the Tea Party uprising, continues to flow. And the jury is out on whether the Tea Party movement will even accomplish what has become its primary goal: Liberating millions of Americans from the tyranny of Obamacare and the individual mandate. It's true that the Tea Party has elected a few dozen representatives to Congress. But Tea Party leaders -- Michele Bachmann, Steve King, Rand Paul, etc. -- have yet to attain the historical stature of great abolitionists and civil rights figures like Senator Charles Sumner, William Lloyd Garrison, Frederick Douglass, Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, or great suffragettes like Susan B. Anthony.

Truly, it has been decades since we've seen a spectacle like this. Never before have we witnessed popular outrage over a tyrannical central government which had become indifferent to the needs of its people on this scale before. Never have so many people been willing to go against the system at great risk to themselves and their livelihoods in order to shake off the shackles of a government that had become essentially dictatorial. Never have we seen the world riveted as they are and hoping that freedom can overcome oppression. It is truly inspiring.

"Truly, it has been decades since we've seen a spectacle like this. Never before have we witnessed popular outrage over a tyrannical central government which had become indifferent to the needs of its people on this scale before. Never have so many people been willing to go against the system at great risk to themselves and their livelihoods in order to shake off the shackles of a government that had become essentially dictatorial. Never have we seen the world riveted as they are and hoping that freedom can overcome oppression. It is truly inspiring."

Really, you are joking I hope. If you're not it's quite pathetic. Willing to go against the system at great risk to themselves? You mean by carrying assault weapons and wearing teabags on their hat?

They may be putting a lot of other people at risk, but certainly not themselves.

Calling this government tyrannical is only possible if you don't understand the meaning of the work 'tyranny' which I expect many baggers don't.

"Journalists" do it too.
A tiny portion of Republicans voted against extension of the Patriot Act and the media is giving all credit to the Tea Party.
Even Rachel Maddow did it on her show last night and she usually doesn't go there. But it fits her meme of "the GOP doesn't know what it is yet" so she went there.

Greg: The movement the Tea Party most resembles is the Know Nothings before the Civil War. There are, however, a few TPers who are genuinely civil libertarians and the Dem Libs should be able to find some common ground there like Kucinich just did. Can't hurt.

wb, that TP is over, whatever vestiges of its libertarian roots remain (who can forget millbrooks' screeds?), it has been entirely taken over by the money of the TP Express on the one side and the usual suspects, the "values voters" of the Republican base on the other.
CPAC will finish it off.

Publishers of abolitionist newspapers routinely had their printing presses broken up by angry white mobs, a fate that is unlikely to meet the publishers of the new Tea Party magazine.

That may be true only if the Tea Party Review is able to keep leftist Union and Acorn Thugs out of their printing office. The left is so violent it has butchered, slaughtered and murdered over 200 million since 1917. The Wapo has played right along with it in their willingness to look the other way over all.

Everyone who has spent any time among conservative movement staffers in Washington DC or New York City knows what I'm sayings is true: that many of them privately express low opinions of various right-leaning entertainers that they'd never state publicly. This non-aggression pact has its benefits for the movement. But one of the costs is how it skewers the information available to rank-and-file conservatives, people whose jobs don't involve media or politics, and who accrue less insider savvy as a result. Sure, some of these people approach cable news and talk radio with the same attitude as insiders. But as I've said on many occasions, a lot of them aren't in on the joke. If only as a show of loyalty to their most trusting conservative readers, I think movement magazines should let them in on the joke! That's essentially what Lowry is doing here, when he backs up Bill Kristol in his feud with Glenn Beck. But Lowry and I both know that Beck's absurdities are no more egregious than lots of other stuff that gets a pass at National Review and The Weekly Standard – or if you prefer, that Beck's inanities have been going on for years now, and this stand is quite tardy at best.

On the one hand, you have the fact that the Tea Party is financed by a wealthy corporate conglomerate, coupled with being peopled by politicians on the cusp of lunacy who seem to want to portray themselves and their supporters as white victims of our half African-American President.

And they all want so badly to be seen as important, hence their sweeping delusions of historical grandeur. If you look at the distinguishing characteristics of the politicians who proudly carry the Tea Party banner, they all share a lack of intellectual substance and factual information, along with a deep sense of self-importance which is not even based in current political reality.

Most likely the Tea Party will go down in history as an example of a kind of political theater of the absurd.

Shrink: I generally agree that the TP has pretty much folded into the GOP but I think some of those guys may really have some libertarian instincts that could be cultivated. After all, the original antigovernment sentiment in this nation concerned civil liberties, which is why the Bill of Rights was added. That kind of antigovernment feeling I am on board with and if a few of the TPers really are civil libertarians, cool with me.

Terrified of the Taxed Enough Already revolt, freshman Senator Jim Webb (D-VA) will not make an effort to run for a second term, Ben Smith reports at Politico.
http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0211/Source_Webb_wont_seek_reelection.html

Later today, Webb will announce his retirement, leaving Democrats with an empty seat to defend in what looks to be another tough electoral cycle in 2012.

"Virginia Senator Jim Webb plans to announce today that he won’t seek reelection, a senior Senate source said.
Webb appeared likely to face a rematch with former Senator George Allen, whom he beat in a bruising 2006 contest. He had expressed ambivalence about the prospect of another run, and has said he never planned a life in politics."

With moderate Dems saying they're open to changing the individual mandate, the White House swiftly puts the kibosh on the idea, a sign of how committed Obama is to the mandate as the lynchpin of health reform.

___

This is the FLAW in Obama's thinking - he never talked the health care bill out, even with the Blue Dogs.

If Obama did that, especially with the Republicans and shared the credit, Obama wouldn't be in the position he is today.

It is the difference between REPEAL WHICH IS NOW GOING TO HAPPEN, and the bill surviving in some form.

This column is nothing more than a typical liberal left wing spin from the Democratic party that hates anyone and anything conservative.The Dems would hate Jesus if he where to return and walk the face of the Earth.

I used to think the Tea Party simply stood for smaller government. Now I'm not sure anymore. Lobbying for government surveillance on pregnant women isn't a small government effort. A small government obviously can't field two wars at the same time. A small government doesn't have a Dept. of Homeland Security. So much for limited government. I seriously don't know what the tea party is for anymore.

Obviously what started as a Republican re-branding effort has grown beyond their control, but so far it just seems like an outlet for far right extremists with whacky ideas about government.

Yes, I know that is from my biased perspective as a proud liberal but when I ask any tea partier what they are for, no one answer is the same. I don't think the Tea Party folks really know what they are promoting either.

If I'm to go by votes alone, it seems to be a movement towards a fundementalist police state. Judge them by what they do, not the speeches they make.

"This column is nothing more than a typical liberal left wing spin from the Democratic party that hates anyone and anything conservative."

You can be fiscal conservative and be a Democrat. You can even be a social conservative and be a Democrat. Not all conservatives are Republicans. Not all Republicans are conservatives. And, not all tea partiers are conservatives.

Not everything is black and white, nor night and day. I consider myself highly fiscal conservative but would never associate myself with most conservatives that call themselves Republicans for a few different reasons.

I think the delusion for tea party folks is they believe they and only they can be called conservative.

This column is nothing more than a typical liberal left wing spin from the Democratic party that hates anyone and anything conservative.The Dems would hate Jesus if he where to return and walk the face of the Earth.

Posted by: fcs25 | February 9, 2011 1:01 PM

.......................

I hear you loud and clear. Preach it brother! Can there be any doubt that if Jesus returned today; it would be to flog anyone who tried to interfere with The Koch Brothers setting up their money stalls in The Temple.

It is important to understand the dynamic that is driving Mr Sargent and the rest of the punditocracy.

First, Mr Sargent is a far left liberal. Folks like that hate American conservatives. Yes, le mot juste is hate. You know it so spare me the spluttering denials.

Next, Mr Sargent is just another part of the DC culture. Any culture, no matter how pernicious, will seek to sustain itself. the Tea Party and those who ally themselves with that movement are a palpable threat to old dogs inside the beltway. In this sense there is not a shade of difference between Mr Sargent and Senator Lugar, except for the pesky elected office thingie of course.

Next, Mr Sargent is a gear-toothed wheel in a money making machine. Therefore he must provide content that results in money meter clicks. Intellectually shallow assaults such as this provide the proper pavlovian bell ring so that the camp followers will salivate on cue. Here's an experiment: substitute "Sarah Palin" for "tea Party" and note just what a hack job the above actually is.

finally, there is good old denial. Mr Sargent and his like minded sycophants commenting here all share a common dream of turning America into a European style socialist state. the tea party and those who agree with the tea party threaten that. Rather than face this challenge Mr Sargent & Co would rather attempt to convince themselves that there is nothing to see here, no threat at all. Just a bunch of disorganized rabble...(insert intellectually lazy insult here).

Watching Mr Sargent and his camp followers work at balancing between the sense of threat and the temporary safety of denial will make for some amazing pretzel logic.

The way to understand the Tea Party best is to figure out what they are against and give up trying to sort out what they are for.
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The Tea Party politicians are like eunuchs in a harem;

"Unfortunate but not unexpected. That means the civil libs are still floating freely. I really wish the Green Party would ramp up recruitment. I think there are a lot of potential supporters out there."

Not that I really know the GP's political strategy, but I think they really need to think small, but plausible. Win seats to city councils and stuff and have them move up the ladder. Running for President of the US is just a waste of time and resources now. I think even running for Congress is kind of pointless. The only exception would be if they feel that having national candidates raises their profile and the resulting donations allows them to win local seats. But that should really be their only reason for getting involved in expensive, high-profile races.

And once they start winning small seats, those proven candidates can move up through the ranks. If the Greens can actually win seats, it shouldn't be more than a few election cycles before they can start picking up a Congressional seat or two.

"First, Mr Sargent is a far left liberal. Folks like that hate American conservatives."

My dad was a hard core conservative and I'm pretty sure I love him unconditionally. I've got some hard core right wingers that work for me and I enjoy their company. I just don't talk politics with them.

I don't hate conservatives. I just can't stand bigoted members of any party who demonize those of my political for our beliefs.

Maybe if you would be a little less concerned about imaginary enemies you could see a little more clearly.

So Mike, you are now the benchmark? If you say that the left doesn't hate the right, then you speak for EVERYONE? I hardly think so.

I expected this kind of weak response. It is hardly surprising. America's liberals seem to hold out hope that we will forget the vitriol and hatred you spewed during the Bush years. We haven't and we won't.

Hate is what was expressed repeatedly. Live it with, it is the legacy of the temper tantrum the left threw.

Fortunately I am very good at considering the source. Being hated by folks like RUK and Liam-liar is a badge of honor. I would think less of anyone who was liked by folks such as that.

We all have to give the Tea Party a lot of credit. I mean these wear grown ups dressed like some weirdos with hats that had tea bags hanging from them. Think about that, in this time and age, grown ups with hats with tea bags hanging from them..Instead of being laughed at the media gave them the limelight. When I saw that I was like *WTF* is wrong with these people. I don't mind protests, standing up for ones right but looking like fools took a lot of their message away. I could not take someone serious that had tea bags hanging from their hats, seriously people. And today I still don't consider them anything else but republicans and that in itself makes them nothing more than paid republican clowns with their tea bags hats and little drums marching like fools shouting any slogans at anyone who disagreed with them. Maybe they should be considered thugs with silly tea bag hats.

We all have to give the Tea Party a lot of credit. I mean these wear grown ups dressed like some weirdos with hats that had tea bags hanging from them. Think about that, in this time and age, grown ups with hats with tea bags hanging from them..Instead of being laughed at the media gave them the limelight. When I saw that I was like *WTF* is wrong with these people. I don't mind protests, standing up for ones right but looking like fools took a lot of their message away. I could not take someone serious that had tea bags hanging from their hats, seriously people. And today I still don't consider them anything else but republicans and that in itself makes them nothing more than paid republican clowns with their tea bags hats and little drums marching like fools shouting any slogans at anyone who disagreed with them. Maybe they should be considered thugs with silly tea bag hats.

By the time President Obama leaves office in 2017, just about everyone will claim that they've never heard of "Tea Party."

Although a great number of so-called tea partyers were elected in 2010, their reasons were mostly because of dissatisfaction with government and the disappointing economy. Most people are Democrats, Republicans or Independents...few will tell you that they are tea partyers. Less and less will make this claim.

reading alot of history, it seems the historical movements were about uplifting people and freeing people from injustice and oppression.
Exactly what is the tea party about. Aside from it being basically about the republican base throwing their usual tantrums when a democrat is elected president, it seems to be mostly about a bunch of spoiled, over fed, blowhard old white people whining because the president and the congress went to the democrats in 08.
What has made the tea party into more then it is is the media. They are so concerned about indulging in their obsession with anything Palin, regardless of the public's lack of interest, that they chase and promote the tea party to give them an excuse to cover Palin and her gibberish.
As a result, the tea party has fallen for their press, little realizing they are just props for the media to use so they can find any excuse to keep talking about Palin and do breaking news over her facebook silliness.

That is the conventional wisdom re: The Greens but I'm not sure I buy it. For one thing, t depends of how you see the interest of the Greens: to me, a political party is a means to accomplish policy goals. Nothing more. I support the Greens because, on a range of issues, they are the ones addressing the problems I think the country needs to address, and needs to address urgently in several instances.

I also think there is a large window of opportunity for a national Third Party to emerge now. For one thing, the Tea Party just did it, more or less. For another, a significant portion of the Left is alienated from the Establishment Democratic Party and could conceivably to be joined by civil libertarians on the Right.

And it is clear that neither the Democrats not the GOP reflect the general public's views on the main issues in the country -- taxation, health care, the wars, reining in mega-corporations and Wall Street. I believe there is a gaping error in the political duopoly's conception of what the American People want (to the extent that is what the duopoly's actions actually represent). With technology and the Greens already being national, they could -- with a solid candidate and an early start -- make some waves even in 2012. They could certainly elevate the political discourse by moving away from partisan-distorted slander and into a real discussion of real issues.

Take a look at the Greens' platform. It is exactly where most Americans are today.

The teaparties do have some true libertarians in their membership, but unfortunately the theocratic evangelicals make up a majority of their membership. Case in point, Palin is being taken to task for her support of GoProud at CPAC.

DeMint is representative of the teaparty movement: theocracy disguised as libertarian.

"This column is nothing more than a typical liberal left wing spin from the Democratic party that hates anyone and anything conservative.The Dems would hate Jesus if he where to return and walk the face of the Earth.

Amazing. All these historic movements were for the common good. The leaders became leaders not because the movement was a good place to rise to the top but because the mantle fell on some women. Same for Civil Rights. The Tea Party is a bunch of egotistical vanity christianity types who shout out their ignorance. They have women as front runners who are rich and ego-centered. Most were rejected at the polls in November despite spending millions more than the Democrats who got elected.
The other movements took 100 years and more to achieve their true goals: equality for women and equality for people of color.
The Tea Party is like a Cyclone. It builds fast blows hard and cannot sustain itself.
My grandmother was a suffragette and I became a pioneer of the womens movement's second wave. I did and do not wear high heels, fancy clothes or parade myself in high profile events or books.
Many in the Civil Rights Movement and the Women's Movement have gone to jail for their causes.
How many Tea Partiers are in jail? None.
The comparison is just more buffoonery by these rabble rousing Tea Baggers. The comparison should be to the Carpetbaggers.

Amazing. All these historic movements were for the common good. The leaders became leaders not because the movement was a good place to rise to the top but because the mantle fell on some women. Same for Civil Rights. The Tea Party is a bunch of egotistical vanity christianity types who shout out their ignorance. They have women as front runners who are rich and ego-centered. Most were rejected at the polls in November despite spending millions more than the Democrats who got elected.
The other movements took 100 years and more to achieve their true goals: equality for women and equality for people of color.
The Tea Party is like a Cyclone. It builds fast blows hard and cannot sustain itself.
My grandmother was a suffragette and I became a pioneer of the womens movement's second wave. I did and do not wear high heels, fancy clothes or parade myself in high profile events or books.
Many in the Civil Rights Movement and the Women's Movement have gone to jail for their causes.
How many Tea Partiers are in jail? None.
The comparison is just more buffoonery by these rabble rousing Tea Baggers. The comparison should be to the Carpetbaggers.

I recently re-watched Ken Burns' Civil War series (broadcast in 1990). In the first episode, when war was brewing, the southern slave owners held rallies against the encroaching power of the federal government. The pictures and first-hand accounts of these rallies had me floored. They were waving "Don't Tread On Me" flags and compared themselves to the Boston Tea Party.

You want historical comparison? You got it. There's no more stark parallel. Even the electoral map is the same.

The only side of the aisle that's deluded is the left. The left deludes itself about the viability of its ideology over the span of history. The left deludes itself by envisioning the salvation of forced behavior...but then conveniently changes the rules for themselves..see Arianna Huffington. It is the left that's deluded not the right.

Lets see if I get this right..If you disagree with something that a republican says than you are leftist liberal or anti-American. If you disagree with what a democrats says than you are authoritarian conservative. So there is only two sides to take on any argument, republican or democrat which under the Umbrella has
libertarian and so on. So how about if you think democrats and republicans are both wrong on a subject matter? Maybe people see the tea party as silly grown ups who wear silly hats with tea bags hanging from them. Their message is basically the same as a republican message with very slight variations depending on the day of the week. Would that make me a democrat or has some write here, liberal leftist? No, maybe I just think for myself and don't see any difference in the message. Yes, republicans/Tea party always talk about smaller government but when has government gotten smaller? Under Ronald R, nope..Under Bush? Nope..Under Clinton, yes...
***Republicans laud Reagan's unshakable commitment to smaller government. Yet federal employment rolls grew under his watch; they shrank under Bill Clinton. Reagan had promised to eliminate the departments of Energy and Education, but he didn't. Instead, he signed legislation that added to the Cabinet a new Department of Veterans Affairs***

Republicans and TP talk about taxs..They forget that Reagan subsequently raised taxes 11 times during his term.

These are the truths about the former president R.R and so when I hear the TP talk about taxes, smaller government and R.R is their idol, it reminds me of the republican message I have always heard. So you see, nothing new.

And when I hear about how President Obama is about spreading the wealth, republicans do the same. The difference is the republicans spread it upward and hope some trickle down effect happens.

and liberty spinner is telling us that the tea party won't last. My advice is this: if you can see the future that clearly, go to the track or the stock market. you'll make far more money betting with your nostradamus like insight there than you will by delivering grade school level pablum to commenters here.

Ok, I am a leftist and so just now I am trying to envision the salvation of forced behavior...nothing comes to mind. More coffee? Anyone have a hint? Usually I can envision things pretty well, but the salvation of forced behavior is just a blank screen with some words on it.

Replying to: "My advice is this: if you can see the future that clearly, go to the track or the stock market. you'll make far more money betting with your nostradamus like insight there than you will by delivering grade school level pablum to commenters here.

Posted by: skipsailing28 | February 9, 2011 2:32 PM |"

Fair point, Skip. Too bad you and your fellow prophets of doom who insist that health care reform can't work, will ruin the country, etc., don't take your own advice in that regard. But as we've already seen from the House GOP majority, it's much more fun to repeal (or try to) than replace--particularly if you don't have any interest in proposing a workable alternative.

To return to Greg's thesis: I fully expect that the Tea Party will leave a permanent mark on the GOP, and thereby, indirectly, on the country. But I also expect it to be coopted in the next few years.

The KKK's off-spring, the CCC had its own publications and even its own 15 minute news program in Mississippi during the period of de-segregation. That's probably the most accurate analogy to today's Tea Party movement.

I can't, it's a Pavlovian response to the logic and facts in your argument. Don't you know we have no choice but to respond with insults and spittle when we see post full of concise, logical arguments full of well cited facts like yours was?

The Tea Party is a billionaire/corporate funded organization like their parent organization, the Republican Party. Wake up people Right-wing, corporate controlled conservatism equals fascism. You can't convince me that corporations are not pulling all the strings and setting the agenda of the Republican Party.

skipsailing28 wrote: "It is hardly surprising. America's liberals seem to hold out hope that we will forget the vitriol and hatred you spewed during the Bush years. We haven't and we won't. Hate is what was expressed repeatedly. Live it with, it is the legacy of the temper tantrum the left threw."

If this is your position, then YOU are a big part of the problem that this nation faces and you are not part of the solution. This nation will never solve its problems as long as a significant/any portion of the country is mired in the past and yesterday's battles. Whatever slight you're whining about, it's time to grow up and move on to become a productive member of society who doesn't view the world in simplistic black/white liberal/conservative terms. That's the refuge of the a weak person, a petty personality, and a compromised intellect. People, issues, and solutions are always more complex than that. It's a shame that you lack the world view to see that.

"The Dems would hate Jesus if he where to return and walk the face of the Earth."

YOU are what gives the religious fundy's such an awful name.

What a joke. Jesus? Right he always spoke about the evils of taxation...

Seriously fcs5...If you can stop with the kool aid long enough to answer a few questions..

1.)Would Jesus be down with folks running around wit assault weapons. Do you suppose for example Jesus would think highly of the NRA? How about people marching on a duly elected Gov't and saying "We came unarmed...this time"?

2) Would Jesus be for or against the concept of Universal Health coverage in a nation that could easily afford such coverage...if priorities were changed. Which leads to the next question..

3.)Would Jesus be down with invading a nation merely on our own suspicions and paranoia resulting in tens of thousands of deaths...the majority of them INNOCENT civilians. Would Jesus really be down with that.

3.) Would Jesus be down with the entire libertarian screed of IGMGFY? A Republican tenet of governance as well.

4.) Would Jesus be OK with the proper retelling of the "Prodigal Son" parable.
You know where the father tells the prodigal son GFY you lazy welfare bum. You wasted all MY money.

5.) Would Jesus be down with all the folks who wish to remove safety nets like S.S., Medicare etc under the guise of "privatization." ?

6.) Would Jesus really be down with the demonization of gays and Muslims?

Jesus doesn't have to return to earth to realize how much the R's already hate him!

Again that wonderful meditation from over 400 years ago by learned priest, scholar and poet John Donne....ask yourself honestly if John Donne would have been a Republican or Democrat?

"No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were; any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee."

MEDITATION XVII.

Really the most absurd thing a righty could ever do is bring Jesus into the conversation...it simply reveals a mind numbing hypocrisy!

Greg, sir, you omit a couple very important differences between the Tea Party and the human rights struggles you mentioned.

First, and most important, the Tea Party is ideologically based. In that respect it is not a movement in the sense that the struggle against slavery was. It seeks to establish a conservative ideology that guides the three distinct branches of government, the legislature, the executive and the judiciary, to the exclusion of a government "of the people, by the people and for the people (all the people).
The struggle to abolish slavery was based the based on the proposition that all mankind was created equal: liberals, conservatives, all races and believers.

Second, the Tea Party is a cash cow for the self-appointed leaders. With a mind set of "show me the money" none of these "leaders" would be anywhere in sight.

The lame stream media is still in denial and just doesn't get or want to get what the Tea Party movement is all about.

The demoRats/progressives did everything they could to malign, discredit, and generally denounce this group with NO success - why?
The Tea Party movement are the silent majority who are not being silent any more - sick of the spending, big government takeover of practically 60% of our economy, the drive to make us the NANNY state like europe, tired of the government nudge with over regulation and taxes that take our liberties and freedoms in the name of safety telling us we are to stupid to mange our own lives, tired of progressives pushing political correctness and fairness at the expense of everyone but themselves, tired of social justice and in general the progressive perversion of the constitution allowing the federal government unprecedented control over us.
Wake up folks the Tea Party people are YOU and Me - they are tired and now aware that their are factions in this country who would like to destroy capitalism and the individualism which made this country great.
Progressivism is the real enemy.
Progressivism = Totalitarianism

IMO the TP will be much less of an issue in 2012...because the TP has already succeeded in its primary mission which was to stop Obama/Pelosi's radical lurch to the Left. The Repubs took the House in a historic shellacking and will very likely take the Senate in 2012. It would be nice to defeat Obama as well, but with large majorities in both Houses, the Repubs don't need the presidency...and unless they had 60 seats in the Senate, a Repub presidency would by stymied by the fillibuster anyway.

Totalitarianism to me is what the Tea Party is about. I love how they use Hitler to discribe their fear of Obamacare and socialism. If they knew their history they would know that Hitler hated socialism as much as the Tea Party does. I can't say I trust a policital party that doesn't know how to use images to promote their cause without looking dumb in the process.

"The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny. Were the federal Constitution, therefore, really chargeable with the accumulation of power, or with a mixture of powers, having a dangerous tendency to such an accumulation, no further arguments would be necessary to inspire a universal reprobation of the system."

Federalist No. 47

Fiona5, you asked. Publius answered you 223 years ago, and his response answers still.

Absent any supporting argument, this statement is so obviously mistaken as to be ludicrous. Tea Party types consistently preach a return to limited government and libertarian ideals, and rail against the accumulation of power claimed by the Obama administration.

"If they knew their history they would know that Hitler hated socialism as much as the Tea Party does. I can't say I trust a policital party that doesn't know how to use images to promote their cause without looking dumb in the process."

Hitler hated the Soviet-model socialism, as a threat to his own designs, yes. But the National Socialist Party did indeed subordinate individual rights to the state, and owned the means of production(including auto manufacturing, ja?), and those two things are key components of a totalitarian socialist society.

As for looking dumb on the images, what of a party that chooses to be represented by an ass?

In America today, every working American is paying less federal income tax since Obama was elected.

Under his Recovery Act of his first year in office, working families received:

-from the Making Work Pay Tax Credit, taxpayers received up to $800, which came to them incrementally by reducing how much money was withheld from their paychecks for taxes both this year and last.

-from the American Opportunity Tax Credit, which gives students and families up to $2,500 in tax savings to help pay for college tuition and other expenses. The AOTC and other tuition benefits have helped more than 12.5 million students and their families pay for college, an increase in tax benefits for higher education of more than 90 percent from the year before

-from the Earned Income Tax Credit, which helps moderate-income working families make ends meet. The Recovery Act increased the credit for families with three or more children, bringing the maximum amount to $5,657.

-from the Child Tax Credit, which helps low-and moderate-income families with children. More families are benefiting from the child tax credit under the Recovery Act, which reduced the minimum amount of earned income used to calculate the additional child tax credit to $3,000 from $12,550.

-from COBRA and Unemployment Benefits, those who lost their jobs in the recession, to help them get back on their feet, the Recovery Act provided a 65 percent tax credit to help cover the cost of health care and made the first $2,400 in unemployment benefits tax-free, when normally 100 percent of those benefits are taxable.

-from the Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Incentives, taxpayers are eligible for up to $1,500 in tax credits for making some energy-efficiency improvements to their homes such as adding insulation and installing energy efficient windows.

On January 2008, gross income of working Americans and the percentage taken out for taxes remained at the level it was in January 2007.

Three years later On January 2010, after the Republican led crash, gross income for working Americans dropped approximately 7%. Had the tax rates remained steady, working Americans would have seen a corresponding drop in take-home pay. But because of Obama's tax cuts and credits, the take-home pay (as a percentage of their pre-tax income) of working Americans actually rose about 1.5%.

Also, consumer spending is almost back to its pre-recession peak (January 2008), suggesting that families have been using these tax cuts and benefits to make ends meet.

While the Republicans were threatening to block a cut in taxes for everybody unless the super-rich were included, the Making Work Pay Tax Credit reached 95% of working families—over 100 million American taxpayers, more people than any other tax cut in the history of tax cuts.

Sargent says “it’s too soon to say whether the Tea Party deserves a place alongside” abolition, civil rights, and other great movement. But then he says comparing the Tea Party to those movement is “comically out of proportion with historical reality.”

You can’t have it both ways, Greg. If it is too soon for the Tea Party to identify their place in history, it is also too soon for you to do so.

It seems that most of the readers have no understanding of the Tea Party ... Is the Tea Party a movement? It is too early to tell, but it is very much a "revival", in this case a Constitutional and Bill of Rights revival. Most of all it is what our thigh school teachers use to call "responsible citizenship" ... common people taking an active roll in their government, as our government was design to be. A "government of the people, for the people, and by the people"

The party of democrats are a perpetual fraud. Anything or anyone that exposes these lying thieving creeps who fiend for power and tax payer dollars is instantly attacked and smeared by the infantile hate filled cry babies.

Democrats do not win election on merit or honesty because they are incompetent, liars and criminal frauds. Democrats lie and make false accusations to smear those they can never measure up to. These hateful losers delude themselves into a false frenzy of outrage to deceive the uninformed.

Notice they never answer questions put to them when they are caught in a lie or get busted trying to steal elections like in 2000.

Democrats caucus with the Communist Party USA, WHY?

Democrats are proud of their 85% felon supporters. They are fighting hard in every state that they may have the right to vote democrat from their prison cells. WHY?

Democrats don't care about anyone. They pretend to care about_____________(fill in the blank) and make you believe they are giving you something when you are the one paying for it. Then there are those that don't pay a thing for what they get and in fact receive money they don't deserve or earned because democrats just outright steal from the productive to buy the votes of the dependent dummies they created and lowlifes like themselves.

Americans do not need democrats to survive. The party of democrats would not even exist if not for Americans. We don't need these middlemen parasites and leeches, they are irrelevant and they know it. They are just greedy thieves who do not know their place and just think they can take money away from those who earned it so they can piss it away and live it up like Barry in the White House. These evil creeps and their criminal organization can go piss off.

Democrats are very compassionate, so long as someone else is paying for it. People like Greg Sargent have been cleverly indoctrinated by leftists in the academy into a thoroughgoing sense of entitlement and grievance, reinforced with carefully cultivated emotions of envy and jealousy. Probably the major problem with capitalism today is how the wealth and prosperity engendered by freedom creates those who would destroy it in the name of equality.

Mr. Sargent seems to have delusions that quoting from a few individuals somehow amount to capturing the thinking of "the right" or "the Tea Party."

What a lazy, lazy journalist. His formula seems to be (1) find a couple of quotations that contain some hyperbole, then (2) puff out a cloud of insults. There's not much real investigation or analysis to be found in his work.

By the way, did that typical liberal who said that Obama was going to pay her gas and her mortgage ever get her money? Apparently she had delusions of grandeur, so it follows that the entire left does, too.

The more leftists try and push the party down the more determined we get. This is our country, not the spoiled elitist politician class. We will not stop, we will not go away. If our representatives do not do the job they were sent for we will form a new third party. A third party that is a constitutional party. My represenative got that message face to face, serve the people or you are out.

Liberals have downplayed the party since its inception, we are just getting started and will maintain this country as a conservative constitutional party with a free people and a free economy

The more leftists try and push the party down the more determined we get. This is our country, not the spoiled elitist politician class. We will not stop, we will not go away. If our representatives do not do the job they were sent for we will form a new third party. A third party that is a constitutional party. My represenative got that message face to face, serve the people or you are out.

Liberals have downplayed the party since its inception, we are just getting started and will maintain this country as a conservative constitutional party with a free people and a free economy

Republicans fought the greater part of the battle against slavery, and for women's emancipation ~ they had to fight against Democrats and their special interests for the greater part of a century.

The Democrats spent most of their time in opposition to liberty, loathe to defend the nation against foreign enemies, and, while they were at it EXECUTED more than 30,000 Republicans in Southern states.

Quite frankly, there's no historian who claims that the Democrats have at all improved in two centuries. Still the same gang of thieves, cut throats, wastrals and schemers.

Fiscal sanity - federal spending capped at 18% - is NOT an "easy come, easy go" concept.
It's been building since Reagan who was burdened with a Democrat Congress bent on "rewarding our friends and punishing our enemies" . . . just like this Administration.
The Tea Party was and is a grassroots rising against historically high government spending . . . period.
It's not going away just because jingoists like the author love to mix social with economic issues.
Obama is going to lose on economic issues although his stands on social issues are equally deplorable . . in my opinion.

I cannot find a definitive document that lays out the Tea Party platform per se. However, a summation of what I have read (including demonstration signs)would indicate that the Tea Party, like the pop song paraphrase, wants "...taxes for nothing and government for free."

“On blacks, immigrants and indigents:
‘...human weeds,’ ‘reckless breeders,’ ‘spawning... human beings who never should have been born.” Margaret Sanger, Pivot of Civilization, referring to immigrants and poor people.

On sterilization & racial purification:
Sanger believed that, for the purpose of racial “purification,” couples should be rewarded who chose sterilization. Birth Control in America, The Career of Margaret Sanger, by David Kennedy, p. 117, quoting a 1923 Sanger speech.

On the right of married couples to bear children:
Couples should be required to submit applications to have a child, she wrote in her “Plan for Peace.” Birth Control Review, April 1932

On the purpose of birth control:
The purpose in promoting birth control was “to create a race of thoroughbreds,” she wrote in the Birth Control Review, Nov. 1921 (p. 2)

On the rights of the handicapped and mentally ill, and racial minorities:
“More children from the fit, less from the unfit — that is the chief aim of birth control.” Birth Control Review, May 1919, p. 12.

Go ahead, libs.....claim this monster as your own. After all, she IS. (but...keep it quiet!)

The Tea Party elected something like 80 new members of the congress and hundreds of new state legislators. Yet the Left pretends it doesn't matter. It is in fact a broadbased movement among taxpayers to get a handle on government funding which has spiraled out of control because both Bush and Obama has adopted the guns and butter policies that wrecked the Johnson administration. And what does Obama propose? Freezing spending at its present unsustainable level.

And come to this conclusion: The Tea Party thinks it's on par with abolitionists, women's suffragists and the civil rights movement. It does not believe that. All it is saying is that it aspires to be as successful. If that is your "perfect example" of Tea Party delusions, then, sir, you don't actually have any examples. At all. And in fact, you are a lying hate-monger who incites people to violence.

The Tea Party thinks it's on par with abolitionists, women's suffragists and the civil rights movement. It does not believe that. All it is saying is that it aspires to be as successful.
-------------------------------------

Why would you need to go on the record as aspiring to be successful. Has a movement ever aspired to be unsuccessful? Talk about delusional.

"And the jury is out on whether the Tea Party movement will even accomplish what has become its primary goal: Liberating millions of Americans from the tyranny of Obamacare and the individual mandate."

Explains why he doesn't understand.

The primary goal would be better stated as: Liberating millions of Americans from the tyranny of "big government" and excessive over reach into our individual lives.

But then again it is not as if Greg is a journalist nor really cares about what the TEA party really stands for. His mission is to sell the public on the ideals of the Democrat party. Warts and all.

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